Leave Me Alone (3 page)

Meanwhile Bighead was hearing about the club for the first time: ‘How come you never told me?’ I placated him with vivid description, and his eyes gradually widened. Sucking in a deep breath, he sighed, ‘The world has such wonders!’

Ye Mei called while we were eating and Li Liang sat in a corner cooing nauseatingly while continuing to put the beers away. After a while though he came over and said that Ye Mei wanted to talk to me for a minute. It was noisy in the bar — Bighead was watching football and refused to turn the TV down — so I had to go out to the passageway.

It wasn’t much quieter there. I heard Ye Mei say something like, ‘She’s late.’

I said, ‘Who’s late?’

‘Not who,
what
.’

‘What are you talking about?’

Ye Mei was suddenly furious. ‘Fuck you. I mean my period didn’t come.’

Long silence. ‘Couldn’t this be Li Liang’s problem?’ I said eventually.

Ye Mei let fly a barrage of invective, claiming that she’d never even touched Li Liang’s hand. I was angry too because no one had sworn at me like that for a long time.

I said, ‘So what are you going to do?’

She was tearful. ‘If I knew that, why would I be talking to you?’

My brain calculated at lightning speed. I realised this couldn’t be done in Chengdu and so I said, ‘On Saturday we’ll go to Leshan. Think of something to tell Li Liang.’

CHAPTER FOUR

On the streets of Chengdu any face can seem familiar, any casual look can contain a deeper meaning. A flash of the eyes, a casual turn of the head, can jemmy open the gates of memory and cause the past to flood out. Once, when I was buying cigarettes at the kiosk outside the entrance to Du Fu’s cottage, the old vendor addressed me by my childhood name: ‘Rabbit, you’ve grown so big.’

She said that years ago she’d been my neighbour, but although I racked my brain for ages I couldn’t remember ever having a neighbour like her.

Then there was the time I crawled drunk into a three-wheeled cab and the driver said, ‘When did it all go wrong, brother?’

I said, ‘Who the hell are you? I don’t know you.’

‘I’m your primary school classmate Chen Three! We stole
a girl’s bag together once. Have you completely forgotten?’

I thought there had to be something wrong with my memory because from a certain point in time, the record of my life was being erased section by section. Whose bag had this impudent driver and I stolen? Who had I walked with hand in hand by the banks of the Funan River? Whose smile had driven me crazy all that time ago?

I couldn’t remember.

Then what did I remember?

The events of my colourful past were vague, blurred like birds flying by. I could picture myself in countless drinking establishments, glass in hand. I could recall the smiles of people I’d once known, and see girls of every shape and size lying with me, awaiting dawn in the curve of my arm. A few details were still vivid — me in a smart suit sitting in the Diamond Entertainment City with my arms around a gaudily made-up hostess, getting her to guess how many of my fingers were tucked inside her skirt.

‘Three,’ she’d said.

‘Wrong!’ I’d said, making a fanfare and lifting her skirt. ‘It’s four.’

Fatty Dong rapped on my office door. Since becoming general manager, Fatty was an even more magnificent sight, walking around very proudly just as a top official should.

I said, ‘Boss Dong your graciousness, what words of wisdom do you have for me?’

‘Shut it, you prick. I’ll tell you some good news: Head Office
has approved the raise for the sales team, but we can’t give it to everyone. At most, twenty per cent. Make a list of who should get the raise and have it on my desk by tomorrow.’

I cursed as I watched his ungainly behind retreating. Fatty might be a pig but I’d forgotten that pigs have high IQs. Now it didn’t matter who got the raise, the rest of the sales team would naturally resent me. If Fatty Dong wanted to stir things up, he could put it about that those who got the increase were my mates, while those who didn’t were my enemies. The loyalty that I’d painstakingly cultivated in my team would be destroyed.

Spreading malicious rumours was Fatty Dong’s speciality. Our last General Manager had been forced out as a result of one of Fatty’s letters. The letter alleged that our former boss had committed several offenses such as sexual harassment, accepting bribes, and spending company money extravagantly. No way was I going to let Fatty get me as well.

I summoned the sales managers of the steam repair unit, the fittings unit and the oil materials unit to my office. I assigned the quota of names for the raise between them and I told each of them to submit me a list separately.

Zhao Yan said, ‘Big Brother, forget about a mistress. It seems there’s only enough cash for a one-night stand.’

Liu Three gave me a malicious wink. I didn’t respond, just smiled and watched Zhou Yan leave the room: large, ripe buttocks and two long and slender legs, with skin like snow.

When I got home, I told Zhao Yue that I needed 5000 yuan.

What do you need it for? she asked.

I said that I’d been careless and got a girl pregnant and she had to have an abortion. This was part of my skill in handling Zhao Yue: each time I told her the truth, she thought I was winding her up. The more I tried to cover things up, the more desperate she was to know what was really going on — many of the bowls in our house have got smashed that way.

Zhao Yue said ferociously, ‘If you ever dare to mess up like that, I’ll cut it off.’

When I held her tightly to my chest, she softened. I sighed and thought sadly that Zhao Yue really had no idea.

‘Why do you really need the money?’ she asked.

‘I have to go to Leshan on business this weekend.’

‘Why don’t you borrow from the company?’

‘I haven’t repaid the money I borrowed last time,’ I told her. ‘If you haven’t cleared the slate, then you can’t borrow any more.’

As I spoke I felt a twinge of anxiety, reflecting that, unknown to Zhao Yue, in the past few years I’d run up a debt to the company of something like 200,000 yuan. Somehow I had to think of a way to clear that. When that eunuch from head office had come to do the audit, he’d spent ages grilling me about the debt issue.

On top of that, Ye Mei’s pregnancy had me sweating like never before. In the past I’d got a few girls in the family way — for example, my breadstick lover, as well as a Sichuan University English department student. However, I just gave them a few thousand yuan and everything was sweet, they were content to take care of things themselves. They didn’t
need me to be there. But this time, unexpectedly, it was my best friend’s fiancé and so the situation was particularly delicate.

Saturday lunchtime I drove to meet Ye Mei at Jinxiu Gardens. Her cheeks were red with blusher and she wore a pink sleeveless tight-fitting top over her firm, high chest. I asked her what she’d told Li Liang and she told me angrily to mind my own business.

I stuck a Richard Clayderman CD in the player. All the way to Leshan we didn’t say a word to each other.

Whenever I go to Leshan I stay at the Jiuyuefeng Hotel. The hotel’s location is impressive; you only have to walk a few steps to come to local tourist highlight the Leshan Giant Buddha. The biggest attraction though is that many of Leshan’s most beautiful girls reside in this area. Five years ago, when the hotel sauna had just opened, a local client took me there whoring. More than one hundred professionals, with stunning figures lined up for us to choose from. The client said, ‘Young Chen, have you ever been an emperor?’ I said, ‘What do you mean, an emperor?’ He said, ‘Two girls.’ My mouth started to water. I said, ‘I want to be an emperor.’ That day we spent at least 5000 yuan. At the end of it I thought that being an emperor wasn’t a bad thing.

Ye Mei and I took separate rooms. I said, ‘Today you should rest; tomorrow I’ll go with you to the hospital for the operation.’ After a two-hour car journey she seemed tired. Thinking back to that fateful night, I wondered what
had been going through her mind when she accepted my advances. And Zhao Yue would have been long asleep while all that was going on. What had she been dreaming of?

Whenever I thought of Zhao Yue, I became upset. For many years, I’d seldom considered her while I’d been away from home living my life of debauchery. Zhao Yue also often went to care for my parents and indeed recent evidence suggested that my mother and father were closer to her than they were to me. At Spring Festival last year they’d presented us with a written dedication for our new home which had read:
Unfilial son, filial daughter
. Zhao Yue’s salary was lower than mine but she’d stumped up most of the deposit for our apartment. The day before when I got home, she’d been eating her dinner of a pack of cheap instant noodles and my heart had suddenly ached. After more than five years, I thought, I’d played around enough. It was time to settle down, live respectably, love my wife well.

At that very moment it began to rain — the river water billowed, the leaves shook on the trees. I saw lightning split the sky and vowed dramatically, This time when I get back to Chengdu, I’ll settle my debt to the company and try my best to lead a decent life.

Ye Mei went out to get something to eat while I stayed in the room smoking cigarettes and critiquing my life. When Ye Mei got back, she took one of my cigarettes without asking and lit it, then gave me a piercing look. When I asked her what was up she just carried on staring straight at me. Nervously, I said, ‘Are you suffering from a nervous disorder?’

Ye Mei kicked off her heels and lay on her back, sprawled
across the bed. ‘Screw you,’ she said, and took another drag of her cigarette. ‘Come and enjoy me one more time.’

I didn’t know what to feel. I said, ‘First, it’s not nice to curse people. Secondly, you’re my best friend’s fiancée now, so there’s no way we can do that again.’

Ye Mei said, ‘When did you start to be a good boy? Don’t you remember how persuasive you were that day?’

She sprang up suddenly and dragged me onto the bed. She was surprisingly strong.